Okay I am now confused. These people who have a strong faith are they former Catholics now strong and faithful Protestants or former Protestants now strong and faithful Catholics?
The best proof of the article is what this thread has become.Christians and the lost alike do not like to see themselves in a mirror.It is easier to fall back on theological debates and nitpicking over Baptism or prayer vs. scripture than it is to consider the possibilty that we personnaly don't have a Christian World View.
These numbers don't surprise me a bit.
I was referrring to the strong faith of exProtestants who swam the Tiber (like you). In fact the loudest and most visible "Evangelically Catholic" voices out there, seem to be ex-Evangelical Protestants.
When I was a lost, broken soul --where were the Catholic radio networks? Where were the Catholic campus evangelists? Why weren't Catholics sharing their faith with their friends and neighbors? The Evangelicals did all that -- they were out there in the highways and hedges trying to save lost, broken souls, and Catholicism didn't seem to care - or, perhaps they assumed that because I had some Catholic schooling, I was okay -- in which they were dead wrong.
If ONE Catholic - priest or layman -- had dared stand in front of Tommy Trojan (the statue in the center court of USC), and preach to the hostile crowd -- everything might have been different. But it didn't happen. The people who did that, were Evangelicals. I recall when I first saw it, I thought it was the book of Acts come to life again before my very eyes, and the spiritual reactions (positive and negative) from the crowd seemed to confirm it. The Evangelical preachers braved angry mobs of fornicators, drunks, homosexuals, and socialists -- I saw some ugly scenes -- to bring the Word of God to us. Where were the Catholics?? Where were they, when I was dying inside, and those Evangelical preachers had the very words of life?
I gotta stop remembering all this. I'm starting to cry.
Oh, now that I'm an evangelical Protestant, sure there's a full court press to get me back into the Catholic church -- and to be fair, I am honestly considering their arguments -- but my cynical side suspects that that the reason that the Catholic Church wants the evangelicals back so badly, is because they NEED our evangelical zeal, yet cannot produce it on their own. (Just like the Protestants need a Bible, but have to rely on the 4th Century Catholic councils to provide one?... )
Maybe this will all be moot soon. Perhaps the great reunification will take place in our lifetime. Imagine a church with the Catholic hierarchy and unity, that incorporates Orthodox mystery and Evangelical zeal.... it would be unstoppable, the gates of hell shall not prevail...